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WOMEN EXPLOITED: AUTHOR ZANOYAN SPOTLIGHTS SEX TRAFFICKING IN ARMENIA
By Lucine Kasbarian
Sexual slavery, forced labor and the extraction of body organs: These are the most common reasons for human trafficking, which represents an estimated $32 billion per year in international trade.
In 2008, the United Nations estimated that nearly 2.5 million people from more than 125 different countries were being trafficked into some 135 countries around the world.
According to the International Organization for Migration, sex trafficking means coercing a migrant into a sexual act as a condition of allowing or arranging the migration. Sex trafficking uses physical or sexual coercion, deception, abuse of power and bondage incurred through forced debt. Trafficked women and children, for instance, are often promised work in the domestic or service industry but, instead, are sometimes taken to brothels where they are forced into prostitution, and their passports and other identification papers are confiscated. They may be beaten or locked up and promised their freedom only after earning – through prostitution – their purchase price and their travel and visa costs.
Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo
By Greg Palast
When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.
Duplicitous Peace Talks Resume
by Stephen Lendman
Global activists oppose them. They do so for good reason. They're dead on arrival. They're fake like all previous times.
They're ongoing secretly. Doing so conceals manipulated injustice. It diverts attention from what's important.
Israel's waging war on Palestine. Out-of-control land theft continues. Dispossessions follow. Thousands are being ethnically cleansed. Doing so makes way for exclusive Jewish development.
It doesn't matter. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin says calls for halting settlement construction are "anti-Semitic."
The anti-Semitism canard is repeatedly used. It doesn't wash. It wore thin long ago.
Bradley Manning Wrongfully Sentenced
by Stephen Lendman
On July 30, he was wrongfully convicted on 20 of 22 charges. They included multiple Espionage Act violations. It's a WW I relic.
It belongs in history's dustbin. It's unrelated to exposing serious government wrongdoing.
Manning revealed what everyone needs to know. He disclosed grave war crimes. Perpetrators are free to kill again. Doing the right thing got Manning convicted.
Judge Col. Denise Lind sentenced him to 35 years. It's by far the longest ever punishment for leaking government information.
Manning will be 26 years old in December. He'll be eligible for parole in around eight years. Chances appear slim to none. His conviction and sentencing sent a message. It warns other potential whistleblowers not to reveal what Washington wants suppressed.
Manning will serve hard time. Initially he's heading for Fort Leavenworth, KS incarceration. He faces potential Supermax harshness.
The Syrian Chemical Weapons Use Canard
by Stephen Lendman
Throughout months of conflict, Assad faced repeated accusations of chemical weapons use. No evidence whatever suggests it.
Clear evidence suggests otherwise. Wrongful accusations persist. They ring hollow. They lack credibility. It doesn't matter. They repeat with disturbing regularity.
On August 21, The New York Times headlined "Syrian Rebels Accuse Government of Chemical Attack."
They claimed rockets targeting areas east of Damascus "carr(ied) poison gas. (They said) people had been killed in their sleep and that local hospitals were filled with casualties."
Reports are conflicting. Some suggest hundreds died. "The attacks will undoubtedly increase the pressure on a team sent to Syria by the United Nations to investigate allegations of chemical weapons that was to begin working on Monday," said The Times.
Britain's War on Freedom
by Stephen Lendman
Arguably America, Israel and Britain are the developed world's most repressive states. Democracy's a convenient illusion. It exists in name only.
Police state ruthlessness reflects policy. It's not new. It's worse than ever now. Modern technology makes it easy. It's used oppressively. It targets ordinary people. It's done for any reason or none at all.
On August 18, UK authorities detained Glenn Greenwald's partner, David Miranda. Washington was conspiratorially involved. It didn't surprise. Both countries operate lawlessly.
They partner against freedom. They're waging war on fundamental rights. They want them entirely destroyed. They want unchallenged power. They'll stop at nothing to get it.
Miranda was held incommunicado for nine hours. He was denied legal counsel. A counterterrorism law pretext was used to do so.
He was in transit from Berlin to Rio de Janeriro. He threatened no one. He violated no laws. His laptop, cell phone, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and game consoles were confiscated. It was done lawlessly. Police states operate this way.
Britain matches some of the worst. It's waging war on social justice. It wants freedom destroyed. It wants opposition to anti-populist repressiveness eliminated.
Militarized Peacekeeping for Palestine?
by Stephen Lendman
So-called Blue Helmets stoke conflict. They don't preserve peace. They don't anywhere. They're imperial enforcers. They're human rights abusers.
Vulnerable people they control suffer horrifically. NATO's worse. It's a killing machine. It's mission is war, not peace. More on that below.
In 1948, UN peacekeeping operations began. UNTSO's mission (UN Truce Supervision Organization) monitored the first of two failed Arab/Israeli truces. It did so in June 1948.
It's still there. Peace remains distant. It was never achieved. UN Blue Helmets play no active role. They never did. They don't now. They waste money. They take up space. They report selectively. They serve Israeli and Western interests.
It shows in longstanding Palestinian persecution. It's in systematic land theft. It shows militarized occupation doesn't work. It shows Blue Helmets do more harm than good.
rever they're deployed, it's the same. Haiti was the first ever lawless mission. MINUSTAH enforced coup d'etat authority. It did so against a democratically elected leader.
Fukushima operator pleads for international help as radiation crisis deepens
Link: http://rt.com/news/fukushima-international-iaea-leak-866/
TEPCO admits it needs help to contain the radioactive fallout, countries outside of Japan have experience decommissioning reactors, we hope we can consult them and use their experience. UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is “taking this matter seriously ready to provide assistance on request."
Egypt's Reign of Terror
by Stephen Lendman
Mark Twain once said history doesn't repeat. It rhymes. French history includes la Terreur (the Reign of Terror). Dickens called it the best and worst of times.
It began in 1789. It promised "liberte, egalite and fraternite. It lasted a decade. It ended a millennium of monarchal rule. It was socially and politically disruptive. It was violent.
The wrong people gained power. Jacobins initially were revolutionary moderates. They were patriots. They turned violent. Thousands were arrested. Civil liberties were suspended.
Laws passed designating counter-revolutionaries state enemies. Undefined crimes against liberty were charged. Orwell called them "thoughtcrimes."
Vigilante justice was imposed. Kangaroo tribunals pronounced guilt by accusation. Guillotine executions killed thousands. Promised liberte, egalite and fraternite was illusory.
U.S. Economic Hegemony: Consolidation and Deepening of the Pacific Alliance Trade Bloc
By Dana Gabriel
In a short period of time, the Pacific Alliance has emerged as one of the leading economic integration projects in Latin America. It aims to succeed where others have failed by creating a gateway to Asian markets and building a Pacific-rim trade deal. The U.S. and Canada are both pursuing deeper ties with the group and have been granted observer status. This is part of efforts to revive and expand their presence in Latin America. In some areas of integration, the Pacific Alliance has surpassed NAFTA. By merging the two together, it could be used to fill the void left by the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
The Pacific Alliance was officially launched by Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru in June 2012. Its objectives include to construct, “an area of profound market-driven economic integration that will contribute to the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons.” The group also seeks to, “become a platform for economic and commercial integration as well as political coordination with global outreach, particularly towards the Asia Pacific.”
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